Tuesday, November 24, 2015

The Cost of College

The
United States is infamous for its exorbitant college tuition fees. According to
a 2014/15 report, the average tuition at an American four-year college can cost
up to $31,000 per year. Going by this amount, an American college student can
spend well over $100,000 dollars just in tuition, not counting
textbooks and housing, among other basic living expenses. For young adults (and
really, all adults for that matter), this is an impossible sum of money to rake
together over a four-year time span. Most students get loans, which means
there’s an additional cost in terms of interest. And that’s just the monetary
cost of college.

On
top of the high dollar amount it costs to get a degree, college also has high
emotional and mental costs. Students spend a lot of their time doing homework
and going to class, precariously balancing their various other life
responsibilities with their school related commitments. While in college,
extracurricular educational pursuits and hobbies take a back seat to class
assignments. College often becomes an all-consuming life style choice motivated
by the pursuit of financial rewards, rather than a meaningful scholarly
journey to reach an intellectual goal.

But I’m
going to start first by looking at the monetary cost of college. Before
anything else, I want to say that there are a number of options (other than
loans) that allow students to spend less money on a college degree. One less
expensive way to earn a degree is to go to a community college (like
Mid-Plains) before enrolling at a four-year college. The 2014/15 report
mentioned above shows that community colleges charge an average of $3,347 per
year in tuition, which is significantly less than the average tuition at a
four-year university. By getting a two-year degree first, students can bypass
one or two years of high priced tuition at a four-year university, meaning
lower overall costs.

However,
despite the fact that the average college in the U.S. charges
high tuition rates, there are exceptions to the rule. In today’s day and age,
students can go to school wherever they want by enrolling in a college far from
home or even going to school online. There are a ton of options for earning a
college degree in the United States. With some research, students looking for
affordable degree programs can find colleges with cheaper tuition across the
country, and online.

However,
for the more adventurous types, there is a way to get a college education
entirely for free. Many northern European countries, like Germany, Norway, and
Finland offer free tuition to their college students, both international and
domestic. A lot of universities require a small enrollment fee, but after that,
college is free of charge. At the end of this article is a link to a website
with some additional information on countries that offer free college tuition.
And yes, quite a few of these free college degrees are taught entirely in
English.

So
ultimately, the high monetary cost of college can be solved with some research
and resourcefulness, and a little bit of imagination. But how does one deal
with the emotional cost of college?

Honestly,
I think the answer is different for everyone. Different people do different
things to ease emotional stress. For example, whenever I feel myself starting
to freak out about an assignment, I listen to some music while I work to calm
my thoughts down. If I have a lot of stress about an upcoming week, I go for a
jog or take a relaxing bath to figure out what exactly is
stressing me out, and then tackle the problem head on. These are just a few of
the things that I do to cope with the emotional stress caused
by going to college. Sometimes I need a break from an intense homework session,
so I go fill my water bottle and spend a minute or two staring off into space.
Or I take the time to set a schedule that factors in hobbies and fun activities
to keep my life balanced.

For
most people, college isn’t the only thing going on in their lives; they have
commitments to family and friends, responsibilities at work, and relationships
to tend to in their off-time. Having a life and getting a degree is often a
delicate balancing act that can be tilted one way or another at any moment,
resulting in some sort of stress or emotional chaos.

The
costs of college, both emotional and financial, although difficult to deal with
are opportunities for learning. College has given me the chance to explore
stress and emotional chaos, and figure it out how to handle them for myself.
The high monetary cost of college in the United States has opened up other
possibilities that I wouldn’t have otherwise thought of, like getting a college
degree overseas or entirely online. Although I’ve learned a lot from my college
classes, I’ve found so far that the real learning in college isn’t at all about
book subjects; it’s about oneself.